Operation "Sea Lion"

[Caius]

Hello all historicians,

Do you think what would have had happened if the opperation Sea Lion came into effect? Would Germany have lost sooner? What would have happened if they succedeed? We know that they couldn't, but its a What if scenario that I would like to explore.

What do you say?

Cheers!

[Pannonian]

Since Germany had no way of resupplying across the Channel, they would have lost any army resources they managed to land. Take the scenario from there.

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

Operation Sea Lion never would have worked, it just was not practical. Great Britain still had a strong enough Navy and air force to make Germany pay dearly for ever man they had try to cross the channel. And once they were across the channel (those who were left that is) they would have been annihilated by the Brits on land. Sea lion was never really going to happen, even Hitler eventually got that, but it was a useful way to keep up morale. The British navy has been stopping world powers from attacking the isles for centuries, and almost all naval invasions have ended up being laughingstocks.

[Samurai Waki]

Just take the Dieppe and reverse it; and that would be how the scenario would have played out.

[Franconicus]

Well, this is a complex question.

The German army was much stronger than the British. Without the Channel, German tanks would have reached London rapidly. But there was the Channel.

The Royal Navy was much stronger than the German Reichsmarine, without any doubt. Further more, the transort capacity of the Germans was very limited and it took a long time to gather it. Neither the German battleship or cruisers nor the submarines would have been able to stop the British Navy.

But there was still the Luftwaffe. It succeeded over Poland and France. It had good planes. skilled pilots and prooved tactics. However, it had also suffered from the fights over France and needed new machines and new organisation. Furthermore, it had not the planes to fight a strategic long range war and it did not have the strategy - obviously Hitler never planned to invade England.
And there was not the will of the German command to attack England.

The Royal Air Force was not much weaker than the Germans. The pilots were skilled but not so experieneced. Numbers were slightly lower, but production of fighters higher. Biggest advantage of the Germans was the tactical skills. But the English had a bigger advantage- they did not have to fight before the landing. They could simply withdraw northwards and wait. And that is what they did. They only fought when they wanted to.

The Luftwaffe could not kill the RAF, because it was out of range. However, as long as the fighters of the RAF were still there, the Luftwaffe would not have been able to screen the bridgeheads and the flanks of the Channel. The RAF would have been able to attack the German convoys as well as the Royal Navy. Both would have suffered casualties, but the Germans would hardly be able to get enough supply to the islands. So, in the end, Germany would have lost the invasion troops.

Although the Germans made many mistakes during the Battle of England, they would not benn able to win it if they had done better.

If the invasion army would have gone, this would not have had a drastic impact on the balance of forces. But it would have some drastic effects. The neutral states would have seen that England was not going to loose, and if England would not loose, it would win in the long run.
This would have changed their policy, the policy from the USA as well as from Spain, Porugal and many others. Most important would have been the effect on the USSR. After all I know, Stalin would have raised the pressure on Germany, demanding more land in Central and Southeastern Europe. Romania, Bulgaria, Finland and Western Poland would propably come under Soviet control, Russian prussure on Turkey would have been bigger. With a defeated German army and a weakened Royal Navy, Stalin could have tried to get Turkey under his control.But these are only mindgames.

[al Roumi]

The Luftwaffe could not kill the RAF, because it was out of range. However, as long as the fighters of the RAF were still there, the Luftwaffe would not have been able to screen the bridgeheads and the flanks of the Channel. The RAF would have been able to attack the German convoys as well as the Royal Navy. Both would have suffered casualties, but the Germans would hardly be able to get enough supply to the islands. So, in the end, Germany would have lost the invasion troops.

I may be falling prey to pop history, but i thought the switch (at Hitler's command, and in retaliation to a single British raid on Berlin) to bombing cities rather than the first focus of the 'Battle of Britain', which had been destroying the RAF, came with maybe a week before the RAF would have been beaten? That was by the RAF's own estimation too i thought...

So, if the the Luftwaffe had been close to effectivley destroying the RAF's capability to defend itself, then presumably we could consider that the Luftwaffe could have destroyed it, had Hitler chosen not to.

With no air cover the Royal Navy would have been under severe pressure itself, and it's defense of the channel much harder alone.

Personaly, I think it would have been possible for an invasion to succeed, but the effort and losses in achieving the objective must have out-weighed the gains in Hitler or the German high command's view. The USSR's vast tracts of territory, resources and population offered a much greater incentive of future and immediate rewards than Britain presumably did.

Whether that was a strategic miscalculation of threats or not remains to be seen, Pearl Harbour had yet to "happen" and hence the US' engagement in the war was not, by any means, yet decided. If Germany had invaded Britain and maintained even a partial occupation (with supply) before Pearl Harbour, by the time the US joined things would have been very different.

D-day would have been pushed back for sure (assuming Britain and the US beat back the Germans from the UK), god knows what would have happened in the Maghreb and we might even have seen nukes deployed on Germany...